May the Road Rise Up to Meet You

November 7, 2011
In Troy’s debut, the worlds of an Irish immigrant, a New York society girl, and two slaves collide via the fight against slavery and the Civil War. This historical saga begins during Ireland’s Great Famine and brings readers through to post–Civil War America. In 1847, Ethan McOwen arrives in New York City to pursue a new life with his family. By the time the Civil War begins, the McOwen family has established a comfortable life, with Ethan having become a respected photographer. Ethan and his friends join the famous Irish Brigade, and he begins documenting the war through his photographs. Later, at an exhibition of his work, Ethan meets Marcella Arroyo, a beautiful, sophisticated woman who’s chosen to shun her family’s wealth and dedicate herself to abolition. Meanwhile, in Richmond, Va., slaves Mary and Micah lead two very different lives. While Micah suffers constant abuse and sleeps on a pile of hay, Mary’s owners consider themselves kind, providing her with “privileges” such as a bedroom. They soon fall in love, and unusual circumstances eventually bring all four characters together. Except for the predictable Marcella, the depth of Troy’s characters offers compelling insights into the Civil War era.

December 15, 2011
The Hunger--the Irish famine--forces Ethan McOwen across the Atlantic, where his life eventually gets caught up in the American Civil War. Even before the harshness of The Hunger the McOwens experience tragedy, most notably for Ethan the loss of his beloved sister, Aislinn. They had both been bookish and imaginative children, and Ethan's later drive to learn earned him the nickname "The Professor." The McOwens--Ethan, Da, Mam and Aunt Em--reassemble in Red Hook, N.Y., to start their new lives. Meanwhile, Troy introduces slave families that experience a reality parallel to the McOwens'. Micah is sold from a plantation in South Carolina to a new owner in Charlottesville, Va., and Mary, an educated house slave, works for the Kittredge family in Richmond. Eventually Micah courts Mary, and they develop a plan to escape on Christmas Eve. Only Micah makes it to freedom, however, after an arduous journey across the Blue Ridge and then the Potomac River. During the Civil War Ethan becomes a talented photographer, in fact an assistant to Matthew Brady, and takes well-received pictures of the Irish Brigade, but he's also wounded at Antietam and eventually marries a nurse, Marcella Arroyo. With the war still raging, Ethan and Marcella make a separate peace by moving to Cooperstown, where the narratives intersect as Micah, a talented carpenter, becomes their handyman as well as Ethan's friend. Troy ends his narrative with the conclusion of the war as Micah and Mary finally find their way to each other. While Troy's narrative starts in Ireland, he tells a quintessentially American story of adversity and triumph.

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December 15, 2011
Debut novelist Troy spins a sprawling mid-nineteenth-century novel, tightly interweaving four separate narrative strands into a vivid tapestry of Civil Warera America. As the U.S. teeters on the brink of civil war, issues of immigration, slavery, and abolition vie for national attention. Young Ethan McOwen, a refuge from the Great Hunger makes his way to New York City, a bustling metropolis in which opportunity abounds, but young Irish lads are not always welcomed with open arms. Pampered Marcella Arroyo defies her family and social conventions to become an outspoken abolitionist. Slaves Micah and Mary pursue the ever-elusive goal of freedom and self-determination. As these four young lives intersect, their personal stories are played out against a backdrop of critical historical events. Troy does an adept job of imbuing each character with a distinctive voice and point-of-view, keeping the story line flowing while providing a panoramic overview of a significant juncture in history.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)